UN Security Council Approves International Force for Afghanistan
Breck Ardery
United Nations
20 Dec 2001 21:25 UTC
The United Nations Security Council has unanimously approved a resolution authorizing an international security force for Afghanistan.
The resolution authorizes the force for a six-month period to assist the interim Afghan government in providing security in and around the Afghan capital of Kabul. The resolution calls on all Afghans to cooperate with the security force and notes that all Afghan parties have agreed to withdraw their military units from Kabul.
Jeremy Greenstock
Britain will be leading the force and British ambassador Jeremy Greenstock told reporters the first group of troops will arrive in Kabul in time for the official start of the interim government on Saturday. "The United Kingdom is ready to go," he said. "We will have a small number of troops on the ground on the day, Saturday, in Kabul. The full British contingent will be in place a certain number of days thereafter."
Mr. Greenstock said if the interim government decides it wants the security force to deploy outside of the Kabul area, it would require a additional Security Council resolution.
AP
John Negroponte
United States ambassador John Negroponte said U.S. military forces will continue to operate in Afghanistan but not as part of the security force. "Our forces are there with a particular set of responsibilities, which is to root out the al-Qaida and fight against the remnant elements of the Taleban. In other words a war-fighting mission," he said.
Mr. Negroponte indicated that there should be no conflict between the mission of U.S. forces and the international security troops in Afghanistan.
DEVELOPMENT REPORT: Tuberculosis Control Program in India
By Jill Moss
Broadcast: December 9, 2002
This is the VOA Special English Development Report.
There are more people with tuberculosis in India than in any other country in the world. Each year, tuberculosis infects about two-million people in India and kills nearly five-hundred-thousand people. However, this is starting to change. Researchers
recently studied a tuberculosis control program in India. The study says the program has saved about two-hundred-thousand lives and more than four-hundred-million dollars.
The New England Journal of Medicine published a study about the tuberculosis control program in October. The Indian government started the program in nineteen-ninety-three. Since that time, about three-and-one-half million patients have been examined for tuberculosis. Almost eight-hundred-thousand patients have received medical treatment.
Also, more than forty percent of India's population can now get tuberculosis services. And more than two-hundred-thousand health workers have been trained to examine and treat people with the disease. This makes India's tuberculosis control program one of the world's largest public health programs.
Thomas Frieden of the United States was one of the people who wrote the study. He says that India's tuberculosis control program has strengthened the country's general health care system. For example, he says the quality of work done in laboratories has improved.
However, Doctor Frieden says the program includes only half of India. He says the goal is to continue the program while extending it to the rest of the country. Doctor Frieden believes this will be difficult because of health threats from the virus that causes AIDS and because some forms of tuberculosis are resistant to drugs.
Currently, the World Health Organization estimates that about one-third of the world's population are infected with the bacteria that cause tuberculosis. Tuberculosis becomes active in only about ten percent of all cases. However, it can remain in a victim's lungs for years or even a lifetime.
Infected people spread tuberculosis by releasing particles from their mouths when they cough, sneeze, spit or talk. Signs of the disease include high body temperature and coughing.
A person with active T-B must take medicine each day for six to nine months to halt progression of the disease.
This VOA Special English Development Report was written by Jill Moss.
The Taiwanese China Airlines charter airplane has landed at the Shanghai Pudong International Airport via Hong Kong.
This is a historic event between China's mainland and Taiwan in civil air traffic link since 1949.
Using a Boeing 747-400, it is the first of a series of special charter flights taking Taiwanese businessmen and their families back to Taiwan for the Spring Festival.
But the Taiwanese authorities have ordered that the charter flights must go via Hong Kong, rather than directly from Taipei to Shanghai.
However, the passengers will not have to change planes in Hong Kong, reducing their stopover time from several hours to 50 minutes.
***
For the first time Taiwan business people from several provinces and cities on the Chinese mainland are returning to Taiwan by the direct Xiamen-Jinmen sea route to celebrate the Chinese Spring Festival.
People from Taiwan living in Beijing, Shanghai and southern China 's Fujian, Zhejiang, Yunnan, Hunan and Jiangsu provinces will go home by the Xiamen-Jinmen route from January 26 through the 30th.
To date, about 2,340 Taiwan business people have registered to return for the festival via the route, which opened last April.
The first group of 85 Taiwan businessmen sailed from Xiamen for Jinmen across the Straits on Sunday.
About 3,500 Taiwan passengers are expected to make the round trip via the route during the Spring Festival.
***
Vice-Premier Wen Jiabao has urged China's financial sector to gradually become more open and strengthen supervision so as to ensure financial safety, efficiency and steady operations.
He stressed that based on the experience acquired in the past economic and financial work, it is important to bear in mind that finance served as the core of the modern economy, and efforts should be made to unswervingly push forward financial reform and opening up and build a modern financial system.
He also stressed that party building and clean governance within the financial sector should be effectively strengthened to provide a strong guarantee for financial reform and development.
He said it's imperative that China should secure its economic and financial stability and safety, upgrade its financial competitiveness and ability to take precautions and reduce financial risks.
***
US Secretary of State Colin Powell has said that it is the time now for Iraq to come clean over its programs on weapons of mass destruction, or it will face military attacks.
Addressing the annual World Economic Forum of business and economic leaders, Powell warned that the United States cannot allow the current situation in Iraq to continue because Saddam Hussein still poses "a grave danger to international peace and security."
He said time is running out for Baghdad, adding if Saddam fails to cooperate actively with the UN arms inspectors, Washington is determined to disarm Iraq by force with or without the approval and authorization of the United Nations.
However, the US secretary of state also said the Bush administration is not rushing to judgment on a war with Iraq.
The UN arms inspectors and experts of the International Atomic Energy Agency are to submit a report on Iraq's banned weapons programs on Monday, after which the UN Security Council will decide whether to give the inspectors more time to fulfill their tasks in Iraq.
The U.N. nuclear watchdog agency said it would tell the U.N. Security Council it has yet to prove that Iraq is secretly seeking atomic weapons.
Meanwhile, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi held phone conversations with US president Bush hoping the US not to use force against Iraq. Bush said the US also hoped to solve the Iraqi issue with peaceful means.
***
An Iraqi Air Defense Command spokesman says US and British warplanes have attacked civil targets in southern Iraq for two consecutive days.
The spokesman says the warplanes coming from their bases in Kuwait carried out 46 armed sorties and attacked service and civil installations in Thi Qar province.
He did not give any casualties.
On Sunday, UN arms inspectors visited ten sites in Iraq in their daily hunt for prohibited weapons of mass destruction.
Also on the day, Egypt and Kuwait stressed that Iraq should give a full chance, with all transparency, to international inspectors so that it may avert a possible US military strike.
In Turkey, demonstrators in major cities on Sunday continued their protests against a possible US-led war against neighboring Iraq.
***
Russia has expressed its profound concern and anxiety over the new outbreak of violence between Israel and the Palestinians.
The Russian Foreign Ministry says in a statement that the Russian side is convinced that force only distances prospects for solving the conflict and breeds still more violence, which, in turn, only leads to new innocent victims.
The statement says Moscow is confident that the way out of the crisis lies exclusively in political channels.
At least 12 Palestinians were shot dead and over 60 injured Sunday during Israel's tough military operations in the Gaza Strip as a retaliation for a missile attack by Palestinian militants.
China Life Insurance, the country's largest life insurer, will introduce its long-awaited and massive shareholding reform this year.
The move is part of its aggressive business campaign to make the Fortune Global 500 list.
The milestone shareholding reform will come in two stages and include an inner restructuring as well as an initial public offering on overseas stock markets, possibly in both Hong Kong and New York.
The general manager of the firm, says the reform plan has already received the green light from the State Council.
*****
Weili, a subsidiary of US Wilden Pump and Engineering Company, has opened its first overseas factory in Shanghai.
The new factory will manufacture air-operated double-diaphragm pumps for Chinese customers.
Weili Pumps says some of the pumps will be exported to Southeast Asian countries and some will be sent to the US, but most will be sold in China.
*****
Toshiba says China will become the second largest single market for Toshiba, overtaking the US within seven years.
In 2002, Toshiba opened 10 new ventures in the fast growing economy, taking the total number in China to 34 with a 1 billion US dollar investment.
The firm says it will invest in four or five new projects in China this year.
The company says demand for infrastructure for the 2008 Games and China's "Go West" strategy will bring abundant opportunities for Toshiba's infrastructure businesses, such as power and steel plant equipment and construction.
*****
The transfer system between subway train and light rail has been completed in Beijing's Dongzhimen station and is ready to open for customer use next Tuesday.
According to the construction authority, two channels have been built - line one and line two.
The construction of the transfer center at Dongzhimen station is also under way.
1--Do you want black or white coffee?
2--White, please.
1--Look! There's a folk concert tomorrow evening.
Do you want to go?
2--I don't like folk music very much.
1--What kind of music do you like?
2--I like classical music. Do you?
1--Not very much. Classical music sends me to sleep.
2--I don't believe you.
1--It's true.
2--You are funny!
1--So are you! How about another coffee?
===================================
注解：
1）black or white coffee：加糖或加牛奶的称作white
coffee.什么也不加的称作black coffee.
2）folk concert：民间音乐会。folk作“民间的”、
“具有民族传说的”解。如folk dance，folk music,
folk songs, folk tale等。
3）classical：经典的。如classical music, classical
literature等。
4）How about...?（你以为）...怎么样？征询对方的意见时
常用的句型。如，征询关于时间安排的意见时，可以说How
about tomorrow？征询活动内容时可以说How about playing
tennis now?征询人选意见可以说How about Jane?等
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